


It Will Pass

by elle_nic



Series: To Let Love Leave You [1]
Category: The Devil Wears Prada (2006)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, F/F, Heavy Angst, Sad Ending, hear me out... i'd write a sequel with a happy ending but we'll see, im sorry in advance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-01
Updated: 2019-12-01
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:14:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21629692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elle_nic/pseuds/elle_nic
Summary: “Everyone wants to be us,” she said, slipping out of the car and climbing the stairs. Because they were an us. Her and Andréa. Andréa and her. Them.She turned and Andréa was not beside her.
Relationships: Miranda Priestly/Andrea Sachs
Series: To Let Love Leave You [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1558969
Comments: 6
Kudos: 95





	It Will Pass

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Doctorpeach](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Doctorpeach/gifts).



> This is for Sav who just watched two and a half hours of Dance Moms with me. She really likes Fleabag, which is where the prompt for this comes from. Hope you guys enjoy!
> 
> PS not beta'd but I did give it a read over :)))

Miranda knew everything that went on in her magazine. She knew every spread, every accessory, every article, every cover since she took the helm twenty years before. She knew everything that happened in her office, too, and as such, she knew when assistants contracted and got over their inevitable bout of hero worship. She knew when Emily, her real Emily, began to let her eyes wander more to Serena than her, and when they both finally became an item. She knew when Nigel had taken Andréa under his wing and turned her into a swan. And after Andréa wore what she heard were sublime Chanel thigh highs, Miranda knew that Andréa had fallen to a measure of her own hero worship.

That was fine.

It was fine because Andréa was becoming an acceptable assistant, and this little phase was nothing more than just that. The girl would get over it, they all did. It will pass. But as the months progressed, as Miranda watched Andréa become a creature of couture and class, she wondered if it wasn’t her assistant she should be worrying about. The sable eyes still lingered on her, and she still knew that Andréa had not moved on with her… feelings. But she knew that the fry cook Andréa lived with had been less than pleased with how she was deciding to conduct her business. It didn’t matter, she told herself. Andréa will grow out of her infatuation. It will pass.

When Miranda told the girl to get the manuscript, she was sure whatever positive feelings Andréa had for her would crash and die. They did not. If anything, Miranda had lost that round to a cheeky smile and a coy request if she “needed anything else, Miranda?” She needed to snap out of it, is what she needed. She had never in her life entertained the idea of having relations with anyone from her work, and she wasn’t now. She wasn’t. Least of all for Andréa Sachs, her _second_ assistant. The idea was… absurd.

It was, perhaps, _maybe_ , a little less absurd than she previously considered when she saw Andréa dressed in vintage Chanel the night of the Met benefit. She was a vision, and it was Miranda’s only blessing of the night that Andréa had to stand out of her line of sight. To feel her breath on her neck as she whispered the name of a man Emily couldn’t remember… It was disconcerting to have to repress a shiver, but not terribly surprising. She had to get herself under control.

Getting herself under control in her head looked a little different to making Andréa go to Paris with her. In fact, it seemed like she needed to do the exact opposite of that, and yet, the girl _was_ going to Paris. It was as delightful as it was horrifying for Miranda, who could no longer stop herself from imaging the girl in every piece of couture that came her way. If something would not have looked good on Andréa, she had decided it was below her standards. It was troublesome, but in a lovesick way, Miranda enjoyed the slow fall to love that she was feeling with Andréa by her side in the City of Lights.

Her heart lurched to see Christian Thompson encroaching on what Miranda considered hers, but Andréa did not rebuke him, and she had no foot (Prada clad or not) to stand on when it came to the brunette. She would simply have to entice Andréa enough to come to her and to stay by her. The alternative was unthinkable. But, Miranda realised later, as she sat on her settee in a pale grey robe, she had forgotten that the rest of life still existed. Her _husband_ still existed, and he was asking for a divorce. Love made her foolish, she knew, and it was why she was so good at ruining her marriages. She loved _Runway_ more than she could love her husbands. But now it was ruining Andréa, too.

“Is there anything I can do for you, Miranda?”

It was asked with such tenderness, such care that Miranda had to lash out, had to push this beautiful woman away from her to regain control of herself. Nothing could happen in Paris, and nothing would, but first she had to make that clear to Andréa, even if it broke her own heart to do it.

“Your job,” she said as coldly, detachedly as possible. Not a manuscript, not a taxi accident, not months of demanding the best from Andréa could have diminished that tenderness Miranda knew she held. But those words, tossed at her so callously, oh, those would do the job. Miranda watched as Andréa nodded and left and hoped that after tomorrow, she might be able to explain herself. For now she felt she was permitted her wallowing. And by the morning she would have Irv under control, and she’d be able to talk to Andréa.

Her first thought when she saw her assistant the next day was that she looked like sex on legs. Her hair was mussed, her clothes wrinkled and her makeup dark and smoky. She looked at her girl from bottom to top, trying to memorise how she looked, and sent her away. _Not yet_ , she thought, shutting the door. Irv had to be dealt with first. And then Andréa, but only in that order. She’d have to make amends to Nigel, too, as she finalised her deal with Irv, but her friend would know she would pay him back. Wouldn’t he?

She didn’t look at them the whole luncheon, couldn’t afford to, but she knew they were watching her, everyone was. She broke Nigel’s heart and earned Andréa’s ire within fifteen words at a speech. Some sort of record, she thought cynically. And then her and Andréa were in the back of their car and she looked like a doll, porcelain and red and black and so achingly beautiful. But not looking at Miranda. Not anymore.

“Everyone wants to be us,” she said, slipping out of the car and climbing the stairs. Because they were an us. Her and Andréa. Andréa and her. Them.

She turned and Andréa was not beside her.

It was a frantic hour after that for Miranda. She knew Andréa would be at her hotel room, and to hell with everything else, she made getting to Andréa her priority. They needed to talk and privacy was a must for their next conversation, Miranda thought, knocking on Andréa’s hotel door. “I know you’re inside, Andréa. Open the door.” And, miracle of miracles, she did. She did not look happy or pleased or hospitable, but Miranda had dealt with far more difficult people, and this was a matter of love. Of _love._

“I’m going back to New York. I’ll pay for the phone and have my desk empty by the time you’re back in the city,” Andréa said as she packed her suitcase.

“What? What are you talking about?”

“I quit, Miranda,” her girl said.

“Yes, well, I can look over that error in judgement this once-”

“It wasn’t an error in judgement,” Andréa interrupted, her eyes bright and her mouth tight. “It was my decision. We all have choices, after all.”

Miranda felt panic of the icy variety seize her chest. This could not be happening.

“But what about this,” she said, gesturing to the air between them. Andréa looked down and away from her, as though the very thought of her implication shamed her. The thought brought tears to Miranda’s eyes, though she would never shed them under threat of death. “I love you,” she said, in a desperate attempt to keep Andréa with her. That it was desperate made it no less true, and Andréa seemed to know that, but she was not reacting the way Miranda had hoped.

“It’ll pass,” was the terrible, terrible answer Andréa gave her. “It’ll pass,” she said again.

And what could Miranda say? That she thought the same of Andréa? That, after today’s events, she understood why Andréa might think that? She’s cultivated a particular perception of herself and Andréa subscribed to it, as Miranda wanted her to at first. Miranda only had herself to blame for that, and judging by the way Andréa was still packing, there was nothing left she could say or do to convince the woman she loved that she was genuine in that feeling. Irony had teeth, Miranda learned that night in Paris, and they’re sharp.

She didn’t stay to watch Andréa leave her. She retreated to her suite and changed her clothes and went to sleep and then woke up and went to shows. She made decisions and shook hands and smiled fakely. Then she boarded a plane and flew home and unpacked and greeted her children and then went to sleep again. And she didn’t think about Andréa, because what right did she have? What right did she have to hold onto someone who she could never make happy? She didn’t so she didn’t think about the woman with the dark hair and dark eyes. She thinks only about her hope. Her hope that it will pass. That this love that chokes her in her sleep and worries her bottom lip and waters her eyes… she hopes to god that it will pass.

And that is the day that hope finally killed her.


End file.
